Learn German: Der Ball ist hier.

In German, every noun has a gender. Ball is a masculine noun. Because it is the subject of this sentence (the thing doing the action of being), it is in the nominative case. The masculine nominative word for "the" is der.

Since Ball is spelled the same as in English, is it pronounced the same way?

Not quite! The German pronunciation uses a short, crisp "ah" sound for the letter "a". It sounds closer to the vowel in the English word "hull" or "hut" rather than the "aw" sound in the English "ball".

Can I flip the sentence around and say "Hier ist der Ball"?

Yes! You can put Hier at the beginning of the sentence to emphasize the location. However, the conjugated verb (ist) must always stay in the second position in a standard German statement. So, if Hier is first, the verb ist must be second, pushing the subject der Ball to the third position: Hier ist der Ball.